Even though Switzerland is surrounded by countries with world famous cuisines, it doesn’t have its own culinary reputation.  For the most part this is because the three main language areas have more in common in the kitchen with the countries they border, than with the other areas of Switzerland.  When Melissa and I hit a food rut recently we decided to explore some new recipes in French cuisine, because that’s pretty much the cuisine of where we live. For a week we tried a new recipe each night.  Below I have recipe links, pictures, and short descriptions.

Saturday – Charcuterie:

Saturday was the only day we didn’t use a recipe, and the only day we didn’t technically do any cooking.  We made a charcuterie plate, which is just cured meats, cheeses, and a baguette.  We had two soft camembert cheeses, a gruyères, as well as a cheese called a “truffle” that had a smelly garlicky center, but tasted much better than it smelled.  Our meats were prosciutto, salami, and chorizo.  We garnished with whole spanish olives, and paired with a local white wine.  There are many different ways, and really no wrong way, to make a charcuterie plate.  The most important part is to use the French word “charcuterie” to describe it so that it has that air of sophistication.

Sunday – Coq au vin:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chicken-in-red-wine-with-onions-mushrooms-and-bacon-coq-au-vin-recipe.html

Sunday’s dinner was the most difficult to cook… so Melissa did most of the work.  What I did do though was fun because all the steps, along with the recipe’s use of wine and cognac, made it feel like “real” cooking. Basically we braised chicken in wine and cognac with vegetables for several hours. This seems to be a very popular method of cooking in France, and is the same technique as beef burgundy. The end result is nearly identical to slow-cooker style chicken, very comfort-food like, albiet a little bland.  The next day we still had leftovers and I actually thought it tasted better.  If we make it again it might be worth it to marinate the chicken beforehand.

Monday – Ratatouille:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/ratatouille-recipe0.html

Even though this dish was glamorized in a Pixar movie, it is quite simple and earthy. The above recipe is really close to the one I used, but to practice my French I used one written in French and made one little mistake with the word “emincez”.  I thought it meant mince, but it actually means slice.  After mincing the peppers, I looked it up, and sliced the other vegetables correctly.  I’ve had all of the vegetables in this dish separately (zuchinni, eggplant, onion, tomato, peppers), but slowly cooked together seems to create a whole new flavor, better than their respective parts. In the future, I think this recipe would be fantastic with a few sausages cooked in as well.

Tuesday – Soupe à l’oignon (French onion soup):

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/french-onion-soup-recipe2.html

I’ve made “french onion soup” out of a can, and from a packet before, but its fun, easy, and wayyy more delicious to make it from scratch.  In what seems to be a trend with French cooking, this recipe took a lot of butter and a lot of wine, but the end result is a warm savory soup. The gruyères topped toast goes very well with the soup- definitely worth springing for if you want to make this in the States.

Wednesday – Quiche lorraine:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/17515/quiche-lorraine-i/

We’ve made a dish a couple times here called egg bake, which I thought was quite similar to quiche, however when I closely followed this French recipe my taste buds were enlightened. The main difference in ingredients is eggs, surprisingly, there are only four eggs in the above dish!  The remainder is filled with a whole lot of cream, a buttery croissant crust, and a large block of cheese. The end result came out very light and silky, not at all like the dense (but still very good!) egg bakes you find at a church social hall.

Thursday – Croque Madame:http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alexandra-guarnaschelli/croque-madame-sandwich-recipe.html

In essence, this is a ham and gruyères cheese sandwich.  However, the French make it over the top by drenching it in a bechamel sauce (just butter, flour, cheese and milk) and topping it with an egg sunny side up.  We mixed up our order of operations here, and poured the bechamel over the egg on top of the sandwich, but the end result was a gooey, rich, and cheesy sandwich that you need a knife and fork to eat.

Friday – Crêpes:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/crepes-recipe.html

We still had some leftovers on Friday, so for our new dish we decided to make crêpes.  The French style can be either sweet or savory, and is open to many different variations on filling.  (If you use the above recipe make sure to read to the bottom where it says to add sugar for the sweet variety).  We had fun experimenting with nutella, chocolate bars, and jam filling for our dessert crêpes. One hint in the crepe making technique, make sure that the crepe is done enough before attempting to flip- they’re very fragile and prone to tearing, so a little bit of browning helps to strengthen it.

It was a fun week of exploring new things, and the next time we get into a rut, we’ll definitely do it again, but maybe with German or Italian cooking.